


Bitch

by Measured_Words



Category: The Great God Pan - Arthur Machen, The Werewolf of Paris - Guy Endore
Genre: 19th Century, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon Disabled Character, Crossover, Don't Have to Know Canon, Eldrich Horror, F/M, Horror, Implied Cannibalism, London, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Canon, Psychological Horror, Religion, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In October 1870, Josephine was raped by her son, Bertrand Caillet, a werewolf.  She ran off, hoping to start a new life.</p>
<p>But evil begets evil, and old curses will not let the past stay buried...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PsychoPomposity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychoPomposity/gifts).



> Thank you for your really cool requests and a generally awesome letter, which made me idly check and see if my library had a copy of _The Werewolf of Paris_... I'm really glad it did, and I hope you are happy with how these things meshed! It was really fun to write, and to think about how to make the two worlds and their horrors fit together, and then to play with the different perspectives of their protagonists. I hope you enjoy this and have a generally awesome yuletide!
> 
>  
> 
> A big thank you to my betas, J, T and J!

Clarke considered his guest. The Frenchman was old, and Clarke had observed previously that he walked with a limp, compensated for with his cane. His grip on the latter was quite strong, and the man's eyes were very sharp, their expression haunted from, Clarke imagined eagerly, having seen too much. His English was passable, but Clarke was learned enough that they could converse more easily in his guest's native language.

"M. Galliez, bonjour, so glad you could come." He ushered him into his study where he was assured of some privacy for what he hoped would be an engaging conversation. They had met some days before, at a séance of all places. Clarke had fallen into old habits and was indulging a whim to try and convince himself once again that there was nothing more to the supernatural than bland human chicanery. It was reassuring, if somewhat disappointing, to know that in all but the most exceptional cases, this was so. The veil was not so easily lifted as the common charlatans would have it, and he knew that it was against all reason that he would sometimes find himself wishing this were not so. Their host had been a Mrs. Braithwaite, and she had invited M. Aymar Galliez in particular as he used to be a priest. Before he retired, he had developed a reputation in certain European circles as something of a crusader against these common false spiritualists, and she had wanted to prove the authenticity of her own personal advisor in occult matters. Clarke had arranged an invitation through some old contacts, thinking the show would be good sport. He had not expected to recognize in Galliez the same disappointment he felt when the medium inevitably proved to be a sham.

They'd spoken briefly after the event, and Clarke had seized on the opportunity to invite him to visit. The ex-father had considered him, appraised him even, before accepting. "Oui, M. Clarke," he'd said. "I think you are a man with whom I can speak frankly. I can see that you have been marked by an experience of true evil."

Now, Galliez surveyed the study before settling into the indicated chair. He scowled slightly as he arranged himself, as if annoyed at the weakness of his form. "Yes thank you." He accepted the offer of brandy without hesitation, though it was still early in the afternoon – Clarke hoped it might relax his guest, as he was eager to learn what he could. "Did you enjoy that little show, then? So many spiritualists, and these the only spirits." He raised his glass as Clarke settled himself behind his desk. "But you know this I think. There is a certain look a man comes to recognize in those who have seen in this world echoes of something older – powers of primeval chaos that remain uncontained."

Clarke floundered for a moment as he considered how to respond to the man's bluntness – what had seemed intriguing the night before bordered on crass now that the man was a guest in his house. Either Galliez was very certain of his assessment, or he was as lacking in caution as he was tact. But he was not credulous, as the demonstration at the séance had shown, nor was he wrong. Clarke was not prepared to jump quite so quickly into such discussions, though he felt a chill settle into his spine as he recalled his experiences with just those forces that Galliez described. "Is this the sort of catechism the clergy in France gave in your day?"

Galliez sniffed. "No. There are few, in any institution or any occupation who have the nerve to admit such things, and this is why I have been retired. If it was once the role of the church to civilize and bring order, to chase such evil from the world of men, it has long since lost sight of its place. The holy fathers are too quick to dismiss superstition as false, to forget that evil still works actively in the world, and how men can invite it."

"Ours is a rational world," Clarke put in. "For the most part. I don't believe in superstition, myself. I concede that there are forces we do not yet understand, but I refuse to accept that they should forever remain inexplicable."

"You want to believe that. I want it as well, but I know better. I was a rationalist – I thought the church was nothing more than a tool of the state, to render the minds of men docile. I railed against it, when I was younger." Galliez paused, taking a sip of his brandy, and Clarke could see the shadows of a troubled conscience in his frown. "I was perhaps not so wrong. Thinking the world pacified, the church has become distracted, at least in these so-called civilized lands. But we still need it. We need God, we need the Holy. Men are too weak, on their own, to stand against true evil. It corrupts."

Once again, a chill passed through Clarke as he considered his own past encounters, first with Mary, and later Helen Vaughan. Galliez called it evil, and while he could not discount the assessment, he wondered that the man, if he'd had experiences similar to his own, could encompass the whole of it in such a simple mantle. Had Mary seen the face of evil when Armand had lifted the veil for her? Was that the proper epithet for the primeval forces they called the Great God Pan? And what good could the Christian God do? A new question came to him out of these musings, however, that seemed more readily answerable. What had brought Galliez to London? "Your convictions are very strong, I grant you that. I suppose they must be based on some experience."

Again the shadow passed over his guest's face, and Clarke wondered if he was indeed as old as he'd first believed. "Experiences, yes, some of my own making, and others beyond my control. But as for yourself – what is it, I wonder, that brings you to the houses of those who dabble falsely with the powers of the other world? And what are you hoping to find there? Are you relieved to find only cheap tricks meant to fool easily duped naïfs who hope for benign contact with placid spirits? I think, perhaps, you are, relieved and also disappointed."

"I have seen, briefly, the veil lifted, and I have seen the consequences – how it twists the minds and bodies of men."

"And you crave more, despite this." 

Clarke nodded at the pronouncement, contemplating his brandy. The burn in the back of his throat promised to clear the bile that rose with memories of the end of Helen Vaughan' life. "Science and the occult – natural philosophers of ages past did not distinguish between the two, and thought that a scientific approach to all fields of knowledge could produce reasoned results. I have seen experiments performed in our modern day in this vein. Terrible as they were, I cannot but think that reason is a more effective tool for bringing order today than your church. We fear what we cannot explain – but reason robs the unknown of its power."

"I would like to think that is true. But knowledge of a thing is not power over it, and there are forces that are beyond the scope of the reason of men. We need an even stronger force to combat them."

"A force like your God? If you believe that He created this world, what are these other forces you speak of then? Demons? Is it merely the powers of Hell? You cling to your ideal of goodness, but do you really know more of the power with which you ally yourself than you do of that you ally against?"

Galliez scowled, though he did not seem to be agitated, and Clarke allowed himself to relax. In truth, he was enjoying the conversation and did not wish to offend his guest so much as probe his convictions. Galliez responded quickly. "Do you think I haven't considered all of this? And more? Historically, we have seen the fruits of the labour of the church, and the fruits of the labour of reason. And both have their successes and failures, yet I think one has had more success, and has more tools to deal with things that cannot be explained. It gives more hope, perhaps." He shrugged. "I was a bad priest, and I know it. But I will take what solace I can, and do what I can – what I must." 

"What you must?" Once again, Clarke's interest was piqued, and curiosity and apprehension warred in his breast. 

"I have made enquiries in your city, where I could – I know that there have been true horrors here, and true mysteries of the old world – murders, suicides. I have heard your name too, in loose association, though it was not until I met you at Mme. Braithwaite's that I was certain of any real connection. You know of what I speak, I see, though it is some years past now. But what if I were to tell you that there is someone else, now, who has come to your city, whose designs and whose power are far worse than any of the tales I have heard of your past troubles?"

Clarke's apprehension grew. "I could not think it true. I don't know how my name came to you but I will say that my involvement in any of the stories you have collected was merely to see them ended – and a more terrible end than that which I witnessed I cannot imagine."

"I spoke with Villiers – he told me all, or all he knew, though he suspected that you kept some details from him. He did not begrudge you this – I believe that if he knew less, he would be a happier man. I think the same is true of all of us who have been so unfortunate as to be caught up in this web of evil. I promise you – I have seen worse, though I too once would not have thought it possible. But evil begets evil."

Clarke poured a second round of brandy. Villiers, of course, did not know about Mary, about Helen's questionable parentage, about the glade in the woods. But he had been there at her end, and seen her shift from what was human to what was decidedly inhuman. Evil did beget evil, in a quite literal sense, and he wondered if this was what Galliez intended to imply. But what could, indeed, be worse than whatever creature had walked in human guise and named itself Helen Vaughan? He could not cloak the foreboding in his tone. "Tell me then – what do you mean, precisely?"

Galliez took the spirits gratefully, drinking deeply before embarking on his tale. "There is...was, a girl, a woman, a poor wretch, who was once in my care. She began life as an innocent, but she fell into the power of an evil man, and came under the sway of a powerful curse that lay upon his family. This man, a priest far worse than myself, fathered a child on her, destroying her innocence. The boy was a monster, though he too seemed innocent enough at times. He is dead now, and I have no doubt that his soul burns eternally for his crimes. As for his mother, I hope that God will take pity on her soul, as she is now in His care... Their daughter, though – yes, theirs, mother and son – it is her story that I hope to soon bring to conclusion."

* * *

Josephine had found it hard to think at all at first. She told no one because she couldn't remember what had happened, not correctly. She knew only that her passions had been reawakened. Aymar was distracted, and part of her worried that he would treat her second child as poorly as he had Bertrand. But there was another at hand who was more innocent, for now, and so she drew poor young Guillemin into her web.

Part of her knew that the baby could not be his, any more than it could be, as the town liked to whisper, Aymar's. But she could not face that part, and did her best to convince herself as well as him. That same part noted the similarity of his infatuation with her, and of her own indiscrete affections, to Aymar and her first pregnancy. But the rest would not listen to the conclusions that followed, and she let herself think only that this was her new patron, that he would take care of her. She would not listen to the part that said "he will lose interest soon," that remembered that it was Mme. Didier who had seen that she and little Bertrand were cared for. She did not want to believe it, but she still set aside some francs, just in case. It turned out that when she needed them, they were not enough.

Her new patron came quickly to his sense before they even got much past Lyons. His bewitchment was no match for the hardships of the road, especially while travelling with a woman pregnant with a child he knew could certainly not be his. Aymar was then in Paris, and with the impending fall of the commune, he could not learn to his satisfaction what had become of Josephine. With Bertrand finally safely locked up, he was afraid to look too hard, lest he be drawn into another generation of chaos. Of course, it was too late, even then.

Guillemin had not proved himself a complete cretin and had seen Josephine placed in a Magdalene House before he slunk home to the village. She thought at first that this would be like her time at Mère Kardec's, but now there was no one to pay for her care, or to see that she had a private room or any comforts at all. She thought of writing to Aymar, or even Francoise, but she was convinced that they would not take her back. There was plenty of time for her to reflect on her life and her situation as she lay alone in her uncomfortable bed, listening to the wailing misfortunes of other women's childbirths. For the first time, she began to wonder about her life, that perhaps she was cursed, to endure all of the hardships that had brought her to this point. She began, briefly, to despair.

This did not last long. She, of all the convalescents at the sanatorium, won the affections and interest of M. Charles Ferrier, a doctor and a bachelor. He elected to have her removed to his private home, a convenience because the fund that Guillemin had left had since run out and he had not been able to send (or perhaps not remembered, or decided against it) further money for her upkeep. In fact he was desperately trying to forget the entire incident, though his family and of course Francoise were not making it easy for him to do so. But Dr. Ferrier brought Josephine away from Lyon, returning to his family's estates in the mountains southeast of Grenoble. Here then, she was certain, was her new Aymar. Her daughter, who she named after her own mother, Diane, was born on May 1, 1871.

Diane was a quiet child, and strange. From her youngest days, she liked to spend all of her time outside, and even in the harshest winter seemed to prefer the feel of the snow on her delicate skin than the warmth of the fire. He mother fussed over her, but she never seemed to take ill, much as Betrand had rarely seemed to ever take ill, excepting for his anemia. Remembering her son's affliction, Josephine supplemented her daughter's meals with red and raw meat as well. Ferrier, a physician, thought it a strange prescription, but in truth he did not care much for the girl and tolerated her existence as a condition of his continue sexual access to her mother. 

Although there were wild animals in the mountains, Diane never heeded her mother's warnings to take care, and would wander further and further from the estate. She began quite young to shirk her chores and duties, but Josephine was indulgent, seeing her daughter as an innocent and wishing for her to have the carefree life that had long ago been taken from her. The trade-off for this indulgence was that Josephine had to pay the price of her negligence with Ferrier, who exacted his toll in an increasingly brutal manner. But such were Josephine's experiences that she thought it only as a light duty to be borne. She did not question her fate, though at times her past became clouded in her mind, the men of her life conflated, and her reactions to her misuse accordingly confused.

Diane's habits became known in the small village on the borders of the estate during her explorations – known and feared. Perhaps these were the first people to recognize her true strangeness – they knew it was not natural for a girl so young to wander so far and so freely, as if she had nothing at all to fear in the wilds of the woods or the mountains, or even in the ruins they held which the villagers knew to be haunted, or cursed, or worse. If they were kind to her, it was because they feared some unspoken retribution if they did not give her what she wanted. Behind her back they drew warding signs in the air, or crossed themselves and muttered prayers. There was something about her that fit too well into this neglected Department, and the sight of her stirred up stories among the older folk who better knew the old lore.

"Have you heard the tales," they would whisper to youths who could not identify the reason they should feel so unsettled to see her stroll so carelessly through their paths, "of the families who were brought to ruin here, and the terrible tricks they played upon each other? Their ghosts still haunt us: in the hills – the Pitavals, and beyond the farms, the crumbling walls and porticos of the castle of the Pitamonts." The children cowered closer as they listened to their elders tell of the ravages the feud had wrought on the surrounding lands, and the dark paths the families had walked, of murder and torture and worse. "This land," the old folk would say, remembering the words they had heard from their own grandparents, "has always been dark and wild, and those who seek to tame it must tread carefully, and take care not to stir up sleeping evil – listen to us, to your parents, and the church. Do as you are told and respect your elders."

Diane had, in fact, returned to be raised in the country of her father's family, and a dark heritage called to her. She found the castle of the Pitamonts, and though she knew not of the connection, she knew that it felt right to her – its dark corners and crumbling walls a sanctuary against the rest of the world, against the coddling of her mother, against the invasions of Dr. Ferrier, against the dark looks of the fearful villagers. She learned its secrets, even those once lost to the last generations of Pitamonts that had inhabited the fortress – ones kept long before any civilization had attempted to enclose or cover or control the region's true marvels. Diane found also the castle of the Pitavals with its macabre oubliette, and found that something there called her even more strongly. She learned to listen to the calls of her blood, and as she blossomed from girl to woman, the darkness blossomed in her. 

While her mother had a peasant beauty in her younger days, an attractiveness enhanced by her innocence, Diane possessed a classical look that put many in mind of a Greek sculpture of a wayward nymph or dryad. She exhibited no outward signs of her inner evil as her brother had – no heavy single brow, no fine hair on her palms. In her the wolf-curse of the Pitamonts was sublimed beyond the merely physical. Diane did not wonder at her nature, she reveled in her allowance of fed flesh at home, and she learned to supplement this though her own efforts. The creatures of the region grew to fear the huntress of the fortress; the farmers came to expect the depredations of the wolf, and thought of their losses as a sacrifice or a tribute to be paid to keep their more precious charges safe.

As she grew older, Diane's life began, subtly, to change. Ferrier began not to despise her, but instead to turn his lustful gaze her way. Josephine, who'd long ago sacrificed her body for the security of herself and her daughter, and who was well practiced in maternal delusion, could not allow herself to draw the logical conclusion. Diane did not care – she feared nothing, and besides, Ferrier was not the first to notice the grace and beauty of her womanly form.

Young men can be haughty arrogant creatures, and their interests driven by their flesh despite the reason of their minds. There lived in the village a youth named René Dormion. He was himself a hunter, trained in woodcraft by his father, and they provided for the women of their household by selling meat and furs, and by acting as guides for travellers in the region. He knew all that was said of Diane, all the terrified whispers of what she was, what she could do, what she could become. He became fascinated – he had seen her, once, racing naked through the forested hills, and the sight had captivated his heart and his imagination. He was a hunter, and he would hunt and have her for his own, tamed and brought under his dominion.

Dormion watched her in the village. She came to them wearing dresses made by her mother, ribbons tangled in her hair. They gave her meat and milk and kept their children away. They spoke respectfully, and some tried to curry her favour in the hopes of their stock being spared, though it seemed to make little difference to Diane. He knew she could not be wooed with pretty phrases and trinkets. This was for the best, as he had neither to offer.

He knew where she roamed; he'd seen her at the castle, and he left his first offering there – a young chamois that he'd shot. Hidden in the trees, he watched her tear a strip of flesh from its flank and taste. She left the rest for the other wolves – she preferred her game fresher, he guessed. The next offering was a buck he shot to wound, and he had the pleasure of seeing how the taste of its warm blood transformed her, and his desire to possess her swelled. In the height of her frenzy he was certain that she looked straight at him, though he had taken pains to hide well, positioning himself upwind and willing his body to perfect stillness.

He learned the things that pleased her most, and came to know her habits. Growing bolder, Dormion would stalk the grounds of Ferrier's estate, hunting for her or simply letting himself be seen by Diane. She knew it was him who left her the offerings at the castle, he was sure. He could feel the sharpness of her gaze during these little encounters, making the hairs on his neck stand up. They never shared many words, but he could sense that a time was coming when he should make a move to claim her.

When he initiated his mad courtship, he took great care not to risk being caught as he left his gifts – he needed time to establish the bond between them, and his role as a provider. He would never dream of taking away her hunting, but he had to show himself a worthy mate. At first he would tear himself away quickly from his observations, slinking back through the woods while she was distracted in her frenzy. But he began to stay longer, to accustom her to his presence, to revel more fully in the performance of her bloodlust, and he also began to consider the best way to approach her directly.

Dormion need not have been concerned – Diane came to him. He was in town on his father's business, bringing some meat to the butcher to sell. They had a cart for the purpose, and while he was tying up his pony in the street she came peering into the back. 

"This one is dead," she proclaimed, running a hand along the cold flank of the ibex. It had been cleaned and hung already, and they could have butchered it themselves had it not been meant for sale. Diane looked up at him, her fingers running through the coarse hair of the hide, curling slightly, her lips also curling into, perhaps, a smile. His heart began to beat faster.

"Yes," Dormion answered, and for a moment all other words were driven from his mind. She had spoken to him before, once, but her attention had not then been so focused on him. He knew the look in her eye, the flash of hunger, but he did not think it was the meat she desired. "My father's kill," he stammered.

"Very clean," she said. "Merciful to the animal. What do you think of that? Is that man's nature?"

There would be no mercy for him. "It is not the way of the wild." He had seen her hunt, seen her kill the prey he brought her, already wounded, terrified and helpless.

"Come," she said, "and I will show you."

Dormion went with her – he was not seen again in town, or by his family. His youngest sister, Claudine, who had come to town with him on other errands, had to manage the business of the butcher. Claudine returned home alone after hours of waiting and searching. She had seen her brother with Diane, and told all that he had been bewitched. Those who searched for him found no traces. None dared to confront Diane when she returned, though the town was more silent and sullen, their fear growing resentful along with their certainly that he would not be the last she took.

Claudine implored her father to enquire after her brother at Ferrier's estate, but he would not. The estate was not connected to the town – they conducted their business in Grenoble, and had long been resented. The people indeed had a deep resentment of even the smallest lords, rooted in their collective memories of the brutal feud that had once ravaged the area. When she was newly settled, Josephine had come a few times to the market, but she found it too unlike her home, or perhaps too similar in the face of wagging tongues and stinging gossip, and ventured there less and less frequently. Diane had come to be all the locals knew of the estate, and they expected no help from that corner in the case of the missing youth.

Claudine had met Josephine when she was younger, and remembered in her none of the savagery thinly masked in her daughter. She kept the idea in her mind while others searched, or waited. A week passed with no news of her brother, and then days with no sightings of Diane, no missing livestock, no mutilated animal corpses found in the woods. She determined to go and seek answers for herself.

The estate was quiet when she approached. There ought to have been sounds, of animals, of servants going about their business, of work. There was nothing, not even a barking dog, no smoke rising lazily from the manor chimney. Claudine gathered her courage. The door was ajar, and she heard no answering voices when she called. She stepped to the door, meaning to push her way inside. As she opened the door, a smell assaulted her senses – a smell of death and decay. Given her father's occupation this was not unfamiliar to her, and Claudine knew what she would find inside. 

Ferrier was dead. She found Josephine as well, weeping in the corner. Her clothes were torn and she, or someone, had clawed at her body. She was in shock. Claudine did her best to help her, taking her out of the room, finding her clothes and food and drink. Though she appeared to calm some, she did not come entirely back to herself, and indeed never did completely. But Claudine was able to get some idea from her scattered utterances what had happened.

Josephine had found her daughter with a boy – a man, or something – Claudine liked to think it was René. Mother and daughter quarreled as they never had before. Josephine was ever indulgent, and blind to the natures of her children. She did not think ill of her daughter, but thought to protect her, as she saw, from the mistakes she had made. Of course, Diane was nothing like her mother. She had never been an innocent and had long desired to take just what she wanted in all parts of her life. At fifteen many young girls consider themselves prepared for life as adult, but Diane was not a normal girl. She felt herself then prepared for much grander things, ready to take on the world. She was ready to cast off her parochial life, and would not let anything as mundane as her mother's protectiveness hold her back.

The quarrel drew Ferrier's attention. He had long disliked Diane, seeing her as a disobedient whelp, and unnerving besides in a way that he could not identify. If she was determined to call herself a woman and to comport herself as a common slattern, then it was high time that he put her in her place. He had Josephine well cowed through his violence – though she cried and screamed to protect Diane, it proved useless. Diane did not require her protection. She unleashed her violence on her would-be oppressor and tore him apart. Her mother, whom she disdained as weak and pathetic, had her illusion of her perfect wild little girl brutally shattered. Her mind could not bear the shock of it, not this new and undeniable upheaval of her fragile world. It broke the walls she had built to protect herself from her memories, and she was flooded with the knowledge of her son's betrayal as well, of the violence that had spawned Diane, flowing through shared blood into her being and now back into the world beyond. She had no will, after that, to pull back together the shattered pieces of her self.

Diane, like Dormion, was not seen again in the region. She disappeared. The case was sensational and the news of the murder was carried in the papers in Grenoble and even as far away as Paris. Of course it lacked the details, and contained many sensational assumptions included purely to attract attention and readers. The relationships between Josephine and Ferrier were unclear, and many cast him as the brute that had impregnated the poor woman to begin with – and the man a practicing doctor! Who, the stories cried, would now care for the poor mad mother? Fortunately, the stories attracted the attention of a man, now a priest, who had known her in what seemed another life.

* * *

There was no point in speaking further of Josephine. Aymar had been happy, so many years before, to convince himself that she would be in fair enough hands. In truth, he had been afraid that her child would be another Bertrand, or worse. He had been right to be concerned. Still, after he heard the story, he sought out Josephine and took her in. She barely knew him. She was harmless to herself and others, but she was often senseless and would spend hours weeping and railing. Sometimes she asked him of Bertrand. It did not matter what he told her – the truth that he was dead, or that he lived happily in Paris where he was married with a family of his own. She could not hold onto the stories. She asked after Diane as well, but on that count he had only fabrications to offer. She would not accept that he knew nothing of her daughter's fate, and Aymar knew that the Pitamont curse was not done with him yet.

His assignment was not a coincidence, but a happy compromise – the Church was pleased to banish him to the remote mountains where they hoped to keep quiet his particular views of the world, and Aymar wanted to be close to the cursed lands of the Pitamonts and Pitavals so that he could keep an eye on whatever new evils might be spawned there. Orcières was as close as he dared go, though he was separated from them by treacherous mountains that were especially so for his old injuries. Still, he could ride a cart as well as any, and in summer he found the village that lay in the lands of that ancient feud. The peasantry there were not particularly religious, but Father Galliez did not dismiss their beliefs, and they found on his many trips that they could speak frankly with him and he would not scorn their most paranoid fantasy. 

Aymar spoke with Claudine, and was able to piece together the story of Diane's early years. He painstakingly made his way to the castle where she had spent so much of her time, and carefully investigated the remains he found there, and evidence of her experiments with even fouler acts. He found the well and the oubliette where, centuries before, Jehan Pitamont had been confined, and reduced to a mad animal state by his captors. Though he tried to dismiss the feeling as mere nerves, he could feel the presence of evil trying to settle into his bones despite his prayers and wards. With Claudine's help, he burned everything he could, scorching the ancient walls. From the village, the fire seemed to glow green, and the people whispered of angry ancient ghosts.

Of Diane herself, Aymar found no recent trace at Pitaval castle or at the Ferrier estate. She had left, and disappeared. He stalked the news in Grenoble as he once had in Paris and heard nothing. She could be anywhere, and he had no leads, no destination. He had never seen her, knew nothing of her habits save rumors and the ramblings of her senseless, ignorant mother. In truth, he lacked even clear evidence of her nature. Was she like Bertrand, a werewolf? Did she transform, as Aymar was so certain her brother had done? But here again there was no proof – the bones he'd found could have come from the wolves and wildcats that prowled the mountains. Josephine's account of Ferrier's murder could not be relied upon, as it was neither coherent nor consistent. It could be his imagination, a trick of the devil. Bertrand, afterall, had died a man. It could be nothing.

"I could have looked harder," he told his host. "Perhaps there was some clue. But I think I did not want to find her so much – I had not looked for Josephine. I had convinced myself, maybe, that the evils of the world were of more mundane origins – we all carry a little darkness in us. Why was she so special? Ordinary men kill hundreds more than she had. Your country here is so quiet, so peaceful in itself, that I think you can't imagine the atrocities that ordinary men are capable of." He sipped his brandy. Was it just excuses? The fall of the Commune, the street fighting in '48– these things stuck with him as strongly as any of Bertrand's crimes. Clarke had that stoic English way about him that made him hard to read, but he did not seem impressed with the digression, nor likely to provide much interesting debate on the topic, and Aymar continued

"If you look for evil, you can find it anywhere – but evil of an older order, older even than man, that can be harder to track down. I looked elsewhere, thinking that this one family, they could not be all there was. Mostly what I found were harmless old women, exaggerated stories of wild dogs. Men of foul character but touched by no power other than the darkness of their own hearts." He shrugged. "I think you know how rare it is to catch a true glimpse?"

Clarke seemed to consider, as if weighing his answer. "Most claims of the supernatural are nothing but delusion and deception, much like we saw the other night. True instances of encounters with the occult are, I grant, much more rare. You have spoken to Villiers. If he told you the story of Helen Vaughn, then you should have a good sense of the nature of my experiences. I have never encountered a case quite like hers."

"Yes, he told me something of what he saw – it still seemed to shock him to recall it, though I think for myself it might have proven a relief to witness such a transformation. There is some comfort in certainty, terrible as it might be."

Clarke shifted, as though he were suppressing a shudder, and Aymar wondered if there was more to the tale than Villiers had implied. "Certainty," he countered, "robs us of the hope that we may be wrong. Doubt provides a refuge for the mind."

"You may be right. I am certain enough for my ends but completely certain? Perhaps not. It can still be debated. But I think my chances have not all passed, either – I may yet learn more than I care to know."

"I admit, I am curious to hear what has brought you all the way from your parish in – where did you say? Orcières? And what relation it has to the story you have been telling." 

Clarke did seem eager, Aymar supposed, in that restrained English way. There was a gleam in his eye that was recognizable. Aymar didn't believe for a moment that his host would have traded his knowledge of the dark primal powers at work in the world for the comfort of uncertainty. He knew that hunger all too well, for all he'd tried to set it aside. The man was possibly dangerous, yet he was the best lead that he'd had since he arrived in London. Aymar settled himself in with another sip of brandy to expound on the tale he'd begun earlier.

"You may well guess that the story of Diane – Diane Caillet was her birth name, but I do not know what she calls herself now – has not yet ended. Last year, I received a letter from a correspondent of mine in Ferrara that hinted to me that the Pitamonts were not yet through disrupting my life. She wrote me with rumours she'd heard of a woman who had appeared in society, seemingly from nowhere – beautiful, refined, highly desired. This story seemed so familiar to your friend Villiers that he supplied me with very accurate details from the rise of your Mme. Beaumont. Many of the same deeds and acts were attributed to this mystery woman, and perhaps even worse. Yet she would make friends in very high places. There would be some questionable deaths, sometimes a riot, even, whose timing I could not dismiss as coincidence, and she would move on and reappear somewhere else."

"Once I started looking, I could not help but see traces of her, moving through Europe – Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Rome... I could trace her route to a point, but she seemed to have disappeared in France and reappeared as a very different woman several years later in Sofia. Yet I became convinced it was her. Other stories from these cities mentioned that she had a servant, a sort of mad cripple, who was the only one to travel with her, and that made me wonder too. 

"It was her mother, bless her soul, who confirmed the connection. One of the newspapers I collected, an obscure sheet from Antwerp, contained a chance photograph. Diane was not its primary subject, and yet anyone who glanced at the print was immediately drawn to her. Even in such a poor reproduction she commanded attention, and her eyes seem to stare directly at you, like one of the paintings of the old masters. I had not meant Josephine to see it, of course, but I had carried it with me on one of my visits." Here Aymar paused, frowning. After what happened to Bertrand, he had been wary of having her housed even in a facility that claimed to have the best modern care. But he had arranged for her to be cared for at a convent in Grenoble for a small fee, where he could trust that she would be looked after and visit her easily. "The photograph sent her into a fit – she wailed and cowered, overcome by both love and terror – and her heart could not recover from the shock. It certainly was Diane."

A polite silence settled between the two men, but Aymar found Clarke's sympathetic look to be annoying and shook away the memories. Poor Josephine. He would pray again for her soul at some more opportune time. For now, he focused his thoughts back on her monstrous daughter.

"I didn't know what I would do if I found her – there are few in the church who take these matters seriously, though of course it was once our sacred duty. I wrote to some orders in the cities where I had news of her, but even where they had a sense that something was not right, they were quick to dismiss it as a more banal disturbance. No one believes in evil – it is almost a new century, they want to think we left evil in the dark ages, but it is insidious. It is when I began to search again in earnest, renewing old ties with disreputable acquaintances, that the Church demanded I retire, and I did not mind so much then. In any case, I am old, and not so fit. Hobbling over mountains seven years ago was hard enough. I had no strength to chase this girl all over Europe. I could scarcely keep up with news of Diane from Orcières. But I was approached by someone else who had reason to track Diane: the girl Claudine Dormion. 

"She is convinced that her brother lives, that he must be her servant, or even her thrall. She, too, is committed to the cause of certainty. I told her to leave it, that it is better to believe him dead, but the curse has drawn her in, too." He shrugged. "Neither of us can leave it be. It was she who began to track Diane more precisely, and who projected that she should be appearing here. She is out making enquiries of her own, I suppose."

Clarke leaned back in his chair. "So you are not certain that Diane is here?"

"If she isn't now, she will be soon enough. But I have few enough friends in London, and fewer of the type who might have good news of the circles she travels in."

"And that is why you've approached me with this tale, is it?"

Aymar sat back himself. He was confident of Clarke's curiosity, though the man had shared very little of his own experiences. "That is one reason. The other is, of course, is a consideration of what can be done if we can find her."

* * *

Galliez introduced Clarke to Miss Dormion, and the three conspirators met several more times to discuss what they knew of the case, and to make plans. Clarke was the first to hear of her, a Mrs. Diane Chase, through friends in the Royal Society who had been introduced to her as someone of interest in the field of natural philosophy. She had intriguing ideas, it was said, about the nature of man, and his development from beasts. Some believed she had traveled in the colonies – at least she had suggestive tales about the nature of primitive man. Clarke was able to obtain an address, but she appeared to only use the apartment as a formality, and could not be tracked so easily. There was great speculation about her servant, who was known but rarely seen in her presence – he was born a simpleton, he was an ex-soldier who had been captured and tortured by natives of some barbarous foreign land, he was a madman. Miss Dormion was determined to learn the truth she feared, and it was she who brought them more concrete and terrible news, confirmation of all of their concerns. 

The partners in this enterprise had arranged a meeting to discuss their findings at the hotel where Father Galliez had taken rooms. The weather in London, with its thick humid fogs and cold rains, was hard on his joints and gave him pains in his old wounds. He had assumed the role that Clarke might have preferred for himself, of collecting and investigating newspapers and journals for evidence of Diane's presence and her fouler crimes.

"I spoke to the newsboy this morning," he was saying now. Miss Dormion had not yet joined them, but neither of the men were inclined to wait on her. "There are rumours of missing prostitutes and other vagrants but no bodies have been found. The police are not inclined to investigate when there is no evidence of crimes. These things are maybe not so uncommon in London, but it is a pattern I have seen before, when she has visited a city. She preys on the weak to fulfill her most base appetites while she inducts those who think themselves more refined into a more complex web of evil."

Clarke nodded. "I have heard some whispers of these, of her 'experiments', as she calls them. Those who have attended seem both fearful and awed at what they have witnessed, and perhaps ashamed as well. They are dedicated to her, whether because they support her or are terrified or both in some measure, I cannot say. Of course they will only refer in vague elisions to what they have participated in, but contribute remarks on, for instance, the truth of Hobbes' assessment about the state of nature, and that man's own savage nature is not so far from the surface as we would care to believe. I think you must agree with them as well, monsieur?"

Galliez scowled. "I do, and I wonder what she has shown these men to bring them to share these convictions, and what ends she intends to pursue beyond the corruption of their souls."

Clarke had a response to this as well, a speculation he had been turning over in his mind, but he was delayed from expounding on it by a sudden and violent pounding on the doors.

"Messieurs! Please!"

It was Miss Dormion. At the sound of her distress, even Galliez rose quickly, though Clarke made it to the door to admit her first. She nearly fell into his arms in an uncharacteristic swoon, but she recovered when he caught her by the shoulders. Her face was ashen, and her hands were streaked with red blood. He sat her on the settee, but she shook her head as he examined her more closely for wounds, and struggled to calm herself and sit up. Galliez brought her a dampened cloth from his chambers and glass of brandy which she emptied readily once her hands were clean.

"Messieurs," she continued, her tone calmer but her eyes still wide and wild. "I have found René."

* * *

Claudine had been careful about following Diane, but she had committed herself to it. After all these years, she would know what had happened to her brother. If he could be helped, one way or another, she was determined to do so. And then, whatever the outcome, she could begin a life that was lived for herself alone.

It was a difficult prospect, and the gentlemen who visited the witch's apartment often left with her in their own carriages, and Caludine was not certain where they went. Her English was not so good even as M. Galliez's, and she had difficulty communicating her desires to the hansom cab drivers when she wished to pursue. Even when it seemed that they understood, they did not seem inclined to involve themselves in her schemes. Tracing back where the witch had come from in such a large and unfamiliar city was too daunting a prospect to pursue without some lead to draw upon, but Claudine did, when she considered the facts, have some leads. At the very least, she knew the witch's patterns from other cities. The place to seek Diane would not be in these well groomed boroughs but in the slums where men and women whose natures were closer to her own carried out their own foul work. Claudine made her way to the east end, to Bethnal Green and Spitalfields and Whitechapel.

A foreigner in these parts was less remarkable. An unaccompanied woman might be seen as a potential victim, but not so much an aberration as in the company that the witch kept otherwise. Claudine was not afraid for herself. She might be young still, especially when compared with her allies, but she had lived a peasant's life and had never been sheltered. She carried a knife and was confident in its use, and was not afraid to show this to any who might consider her an easy target. She learned the nature of the streets; she spoke with the organ grinders and the stall merchants, and gathered what news she could. This trail of breadcrumbs, explored over several days, led her to down to Sandys Row, and it was there that she first caught sight of her brother.

If he had been moving, she might not have known it was him. But he had a way of slouching that was recognizable of old despite his infirmities, and she approached him from his right side, where there were fewer defacing scars to obscure his familiar profile. He was watching the women of the street, who called out enticements to other passing men but gave René a wide berth, looking on him with revulsion and suspicion. There was a feral focus in his eye that reminded her of a wolf stalking prey, and though her first impulse had been to run up and embrace him, she held herself back. Instead, she watched him, planning what she might say and how she might safely make a further assessment of his current character. The longer she lurked, the more convinced she became that it would be abased from what she had once known – but he was still her brother.

After a while, René made to approach one of the women. He shambled towards her slowly, his limp more pronounced even than M. Galliez's, and she wondered if he might even have a wooden leg. From afar, the women jeered him, but as he continued to approach, most drew away into small groups, relying on one another for their confidence and aware at some base level that this was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Of course not all of them possessed such keen instincts, or perhaps they were simply more desperate. A trollop with brittle hair pinned up beneath her dingy hat, her dress unfashionable and grimy, stood her ground and even gave a nervous smile.

One of the other whores called out something that could have been a warning, but her compatriots hissed her silent, muttering to each other in words that sounded English but made no logical sense given Claudine's rudimentary grasp of the language

She did not think the girl in any greater danger than that posed by any of her other patrons, even as she slipped around the corner to an alley to perform her trade. This was not an animal hunting, picking on the old and weak. This was a trap to build complacency so that one might draw in meatier game, like leaving out a feed of apples for deer. They couldn’t afford to be quite so blatant; indeed, the whore returned a short while later with a triumphant grin, waving a coin and crowing at her rivals. 

Claudine weighed her options quickly. This behaviour matched the stories she had gathered in Munich. René would surely come back this way again, but not today. He might have established several hunting grounds by now, and be making a circuit of them, or he might be headed back to wherever he, or even perhaps he and Diane, had entrenched themselves. She decided to pursue, as safely as she could. Once she was more familiar with his habits, she could attempt to approach him in some way. She felt some relief at seeing him alive, but she listened to her instincts that told her that he was not the young man she had known – the brother she loved – but that he was twisted and dangerous and even evil.

Having made up her mind, Claudine hurried towards the alley down which he had disappeared, ignoring the jeers of the street walkers and likewise the disgusting nature of the filthy streets, though she was as grateful in this quarter for her solid boots as for her knife. René had not lingered after his encounter with the prostitute, but his slow gait made it easy for her to spot him, slouching his way down the next street. He was easy to follow, as she could let him amble ahead for long stretches and be sure of catching him again. This strategy served her well enough until she allowed him to turn a corner well ahead of her, expecting him to keep, as he had been doing, to the main thoroughfares. But when she rounded the corner herself, there was no sight of him – only a number of dismal looking alleys on either side of the street down which he could have turned. Picking up her pace, she peered first down one and then the next, seeing no sign of him whatsoever.

Claudine proceeded a little ways further down an even darker, more gloomy alley to confirm that her brother had not turned that way, when she heard a scuffling behind her. She reached for her knife, but had barely wrapped her fingers around its comforting hilt when she was seized, strong arms encircling her, spinning her around and off balance, a filthy gloved hand stifling the cry that slipped from her throat. It did not matter – she knew that in this district no one would come to her aid no matter how she screamed.

This was her first close look at her brother. The skin hung loose on the left side of his face, sagging in a strange pattern over tighter scars suggesting that it had been rent, and healed poorly. His lips were patchy and mangled, as though they too had been torn away and inexpertly sewn back together. The hand that covered her face was missing fingers. A manic brightness gleamed in his eyes and he sneered down at her, addressing her in broken, slurred English.

"What is this?" He hissed against her ear. "Why you follow me?"

He shook her, pushed her back against the slimy wall and, as if realizing she could not answer while he covered her mouth, moved his maimed hand from her lips to her throat.

"René! It's your sister, Claudine – please!" She spoke in French, her words choked by the pressure on her neck, and unsure if she begged for clemency or understanding, and whom for.

He replied with no delay, no flash in his eye to indicate recognition, nothing but feral mania in his disfigured countenance as his fingers began to squeeze tighter. "You are nothing but meat." If he knew her, he did not care, and he would surely kill her, or worse.

Claudine reached again for her knife, drawing it clumsily as she struggled against his greater strength. Despite his infirmities, René was much stronger that she expected, and more stable, so that her efforts to push him away or unbalance him were of no avail. Claudine was still faster, and once her blade was free she let go of her pity, and plunged the knife as deeply as she could into his flesh. He roared – he yowled like a wounded beast – and grabbing her by her coat, lifted her off the street to dash her against the cobbles towards the mouth of the narrow alley. She scrabbled back, gasping to recover her air, eyes watering at the bruising of her body. The handle of the knife protruded from his chest, and he reached for it, roaring again. She was certain he would advance on her – madness flashed even more brightly in his eyes, effacing any remnant humanity – but instead he roared again, sagging against the wall, and she was able to get her feet beneath her and run. René did not pursue, but even in London's most notorious quarter, those she passed in Fashion Street stared towards the inhuman sounds with looks of horror on their faces.

* * *

By the time she finished her tale Miss Dormion had entirely recovered her calm and spoke with increasing confidence. "I think he was quite wounded. We could find him, if we dared. He might lead us to Diane, or perhaps we might capture him, and learn more of her from him. With his injuries, I think we could subdue him."

Clarke hesitated. Galliez looked thoughtful, as if he was considering the mad idea, but turned his sharp gaze to him, knowing perhaps that without his aid they would get nowhere. This matter could not be resolved as easily as the case of Helen Vaughn. Diane certainly shared traits with that daughter of Pan, and perhaps could even be called some sort of cousin to her. But for all of Helen's depravity, he had been certain, when he had cornered her in her house with Villiers, that she would take the noose. Diane was another sort of monster, and not the kind who would allow one to keep one's hands clean. Despite how she piqued his curiosity, he retained enough sense to know she must be stopped, and this could be their chance. Miss Dormion would not easily be deterred, regardless, and he could see plainly that she was marshalling her haranguing French tongue to try and stir them both to action.

"Well." He sighed slightly, as though relenting. "I certainly have little knowledge of that portion of London. For any other reason I would not dream of risking being seen in such a place – though I suppose I need not fear encountering any acquaintances there. If we much venture to Whitechapel, I will hope that it only needs be the once."

With that decided, they then had to arrange how best to proceed. Time might be short. Galliez was ready to go instantly, but relented to letting Clarke borrow a coat of his – ill-fitting though it was – to cover his suit and so, he hoped, attract less attention. Galliez was also able to produce an old knife of his own. Its blackened blade was tarnished silver, and its hilt was wrapped in cracking leather. Clarke frowned when Miss Dormion stepped forward to claim it, but he did not deter her directly. Though not so old as Galliez, he was not so young nor so quick as the girl. It was not the physical danger that frightened him, in any case.

Miss Dormion had used the Underground to navigate her way back to the hotel, and despite his hesitation, it seemed that this would be the most expedient manner of returning. The Metropolitan line took them to Aldgate Station, and they made their way the few meters to Commercial Street. Looking around, Clarke felt a twinge of disappointment that reports of the neighborhood's improvement in the past few years did not seem entirely exaggerated. There were no gangs of thieves and women of low character lurking on every corner. No one approached them, though a barrel-organ belted its obnoxious music a little distance away. The stalls at this time were empty save for a few merchants still packing up their wares, and the lamplighters had emerged to begin to light the street lamps in advance of the closing of the day. But Miss Dormion pressed on through past this almost quaint scene to shadowed alleys between crazy tenements and, as they entered areas that better matched the image he had formed of the district, he was glad after all to have secured his valuables at Galliez's hotel.

Miss Dormion was able to lead them to the area of her assault, though it took her a few tries to find the precise alleyway where she had stabbed her brother. It was Galliez, in fact, who identified the bloodstains, indicating these with his cane first on the ground, and then along the black shadowed walls. 

"This way, then," he quipped, forging on ahead. Clarke followed, though he felt a rising apprehension as they pressed deeper into the slum. He tried to take comfort in the sounds of life, pitiful though it might be, continuing around them – a domestic row, men drunk before dusk singing in their hovels, a child wailing for its mother. The city seemed dark and unfamiliar in the face of the setting sun, so that he might as well have been wandering some primeval forest beset by flesh-hungry beasts. He could not dismiss the notion as imagination, and his heart beat a panicked rhythm. Was this a natural transplantation, he wondered, to leave the dark woods for the towering caves of brick, filled with wild men a mere step away from their savage animal natures? Was this the trick that Diane had shown to the naturalists she corrupted? He thought too of Galliez's tirade that all men carry evil in them, that they are all capable of vile and violent deeds, that they – we – were all werewolves of one sort or another.

They followed the trail, first Galliez leading, then Claudine as she put to use her knowledge of the area to deduce where the ghoulish pair might headquarter themselves safely. It was Clarke, his senses heightened by his fear, who spotted the blood on the door of the Thrawl Street tenement. When they tested it, carefully, it was unlatched. They took a moment to light the lamp they had brought, as all was dark and silent within. Clarke kept hold of the light, but Claudine, her silver dagger drawn, pressed ahead through the narrow corridor. A foul stench assaulted their senses, and he felt his stomach quaver, thinking of the black thing he had seen Helen Vaughn becoming, of the stain it had left before it dissipated. Something crunched sickeningly beneath Galliez's cane, but he could not bring himself to look down, or hesitate. The air felt thin, as though the veil itself was stretched out and the worlds of madness and reason separated only by taut gossamer threads.

They paused when they heard the heavy breathing coming from around the jamb of a door just ahead and to the right. Stepping up behind Miss Dormion, Galliez pushed it open with the foot of his cane, and promptly pushed the end of it into her brother's chest when he attempted to leap out at them. Both Galliez and Dormion staggered back with the blow, but Miss Dormion was on her brother quickly, and he staggered back from the silver knife. Weakness made his legs give way beneath him and once he fell to his knees the fight seemed to leave him. His sister beckoned Clarke closer with the light and Galliez, having recovered his own footing, followed close behind.

"René – what have you become?"

The creature before them hardly seemed human. He had torn open his shirt, perhaps to try and tend the wicked-looking wound his sister had dealt him during their encounter in the alley. Clarke was not a doctor, but his friendship with certain individuals of that profession as well as his secret fascination with the occult had given him a more than passing familiarity with anatomy. He guessed she had managed to pierce one of his organs – perhaps his liver from the jaundiced colour of his skin. A weaker man might have died purely from the shock, let alone the loss of blood, but no matter what happened here now, his fate was sealed by the certain putrefaction of his wound.

Given the nature of his scars, it was clear that he was no stranger to vicious injury. Beyond the marks that Miss Dormion had described previously, the muscles of his chest and neck showed deformity commensurate with deep muscle wounds, as if pieces of his flesh had been cut away. Or perhaps not cut, Clarke thought with a queasy shiver as he examined the scarring that patterned his chest.

"You are nothing!" Dormion cried, and a fit seized him so that he made as if to rise again, and shuddered, an ecstatic look on his face. It was discomfiting, and he seemed momentarily to look beyond them and beyond their world, taking strength from whatever he saw, Clarke suspected, beyond the veil. It reminded him of Mary. "It's coming," he screamed, "it is coming!" Dormion's mangled fingers rose to clutch at his chest, gouging into the hole left by his sister's knife. "Please, lady!"

Miss Dormion, started, pushed the flat of her blade up to his face. It seemed to hiss against his skin; he drew back, looking defeated, sagging back against the filthy brickwork of the tenement floor. The tension coiled in Clarke's own shoulders seemed to release somewhat as the primal energy of the scene ebbed away. "Enough," she whispered quietly. "Enough René. It's over, my poor brother. M. Galliez was right after all... This is no comfort."

Now that his mania had been exorcised, he looked more the part of a pitifully dying cripple and less a crazed murderer. His sister drew the knife back from to his cheek, and a red welt was visible where it had lain against his flesh. Dormion took a deep shuddering breath when it was removed, but it was clear that a more permanent relief to his condition would be upon him soon. The taut, lined, skin of his face was ashen and he stared at them, bewildered.

Galliez stepped forward, addressing him in French. "Tell us now, while you still have time – where is Diane? What is she planning?"

Dormion stared at him, focusing his gaze, and a bit of the fey light seemed to return to his eyes. "You can't stop her. The world.... the world will eat itself alive. It's all an illusion, soon I will be free of it, we'll all be free. All men... We're beasts, we carve, carve and consume. We are savage... We will savage the world until the illusion...is gone...."

There was something in the nonsense that made Clarke shiver. Perhaps it was the way Dormion looked at him directly, ignoring the others, searching his face for something. He did not want to understand, and yet he too had glimpsed beyond the veil once. To know that the world that one inhabited was, at best a layer covering an unspeakable chaotic truth... The obsession was all that had drawn him here tonight. Certainly, despite the arguments he clung to, it had little to do with reason.

Galliez huffed in annoyance, breaking the spell. "I am fond enough of this world, though I have seen enough to know its nature – more than a pathetic depraved wretch like you. There is holiness in it as well, and mercy. But not for you. That is between you and God, in the world beyond." He barely paused before continuing, returning to his point of greater interest. "Will Diane come here?"

"Yes." His voice was growing fainter, the fingers that clawed his chest uncurling slowly. "She will come, so beautiful, she will feast, and hunt, and destroy you, and she will go back to her society men and give them secret truths to turn their minds and make the world her own, my huntress, my terrible beauty, my death..."

His words stopped with a quiet sigh as his lungs gave up their last air. Miss Dormion stood back then, her face wet with tears that she wiped quickly away. "I want her dead," was all she said, removing her coat to lay it across her brother's form.

"Whatever corruption she has been perpetuating must be stopped," Clarke found himself agreeing, trying to put Dormion's words out of his mind, to disconnect them from the conversations he'd held with his friends in the Royal Society, from his knowledge of the men she had spoken to, of their power in the nation, or beyond it. Britain seemed at peace from the inside, but he knew that her empire was ravenous, and that there were many who craved the blood of what they viewed as weak prey. Perhaps the nations of Europe were themselves werewolves, in Galliez's terms. Was that the hunger she sought to wake, or something worse? "It seems she has grander designs than to ruin the lives of a few select men."

"Yes – but again, how?" Galliez peered pessimistically around. 

Miss Dormion had already stepped further into the room to examine what lay beyond. Her face was pale and her lips tight, and Clarke did not think it only due to her loss. He suspected, and did not wish to confirm, what evidence of depravity lay beyond the threshold. When she beckoned him forward with the light, he fixed his gaze straight ahead. "My god," she swore, choking on the words. The stench as she nudged back door open told him more than he wished to know. Underlying the scent of decay, however, was something else not identifiable but yet familiar.

"Close the door," he commanded, aware of the quaver of in his tone. The scent reminded him of the oily fluid that Raymond had prepared when he had drugged Mary, before the surgery that had opened her skull and mind to something that could never be closed off again. Miss Dormion looked back at him briefly, as if in surprise.

"Is it the same as at the castle?" Galliez interrupted, though he made no move to see for himself.

"It is the same as what I found in Munich, Monsieur." She closed it now, shaking her head. "There is more evidence of rites, perhaps, but..." She glanced at Clarke again and shrugged.

"This place must be purified. And her with it, if it can be managed."

The others seemed unaffected, but already Clarke found his mind drifting, filled with incongruous visions. They weren't in a tenement – they were in a wood, on a path before a clearing. It was summer, with the scent of wildflowers on the breeze. Dormion was there, his well-formed naked body whole, laughing, smiling, beckoning. There was a sound, like a flute, and something shifted in the trees ahead. Something formless and unfathomable and endless. Something not alone.

"She's coming." His own words snapped Clarke out of his reverie, though the room still seemed hazy and unreal. 

Galliez turned his head sharply, the motion leaving a blur in Clarke's vision. "Now?"

"Soon." Clarke didn't know where his certainty stemmed from, and neither Galliez nor Miss Dormion asked.

"Help me move the body."

The two men dragged Dormion back into the room, away from the doorway, and the activity helped Clarke clear his head somewhat. They did not remove his sister's coat – Diane's hunter's instincts would not miss the trail of blood, or fail to recognize its particular scent, even if she did not already know what had happened. But she would have to go deeper into the house to investigate. And perhaps then... what? They could set the house aflame, perhaps. The brickwork was old and crumbling, the plaster inside was dank and mildewed from the fogs, but it might still burn. It would no doubt please Galliez, who seemed rather taken with the church's old habits in that regard.

Clarke could feel her approaching as a dread building in the back of his skull, a pressure on his imagination. The city was a dark forest; they were prey. It was instinct for him, but he wasn't certain the others felt it. They had never faced such a thing, not like this. They didn't know. Their minds hadn't been marked – cracked open, perhaps, or exposed – despite all of Galliez's talk of curses and of werewolves, and whatever the story had been with Diane's father. Clarke had once considered that his prior exposure might be akin to an inoculation, as the medical injection. He had not, as Mary had, been forced to face the Great God Pan, the primordial force of chaos, whatever it might be called, directly. But his indirect experiences left him no better prepared for this. No, it was more like an old wound that leaves one vulnerable to future injury.

"Quickly now," he said, but he was not sure where they could go from the alley. Miss Dormion seemed to have some idea, however, and beckoned them on towards a doorway across the alley. The door had no latch and swung open at her touch. There was no light inside but their own, and Clarke, fighting his instincts, adjusted the hood of the lantern so the flame emitted but the barest glow. There was no sound save their own breathing at first but. as he adjusted, he could discern the noise of the streets at either end of the alley. 

Diane's presence was drawing nearer as well. He could not dismiss the notion as mere fancy. His experience was too direct, too strong. Despite the strangeness, he grasped at rational explanations – it was a form of harmonics, or magnetism, or it was the effect of some force unknown yet to science, whose properties were uninvestigated but not beyond comprehension. So much remained unexplained in this world, but science continued to progress, to demystify the natural world. And what was this but nature in its rawest form? The world, according to Thompson, was close to 40 million years old. And the universe? Older still. It was an unfathomable length of time; time enough to encompass far more possibilities and terrors that the mind of a single man could ever hope to comprehend.

They didn't hear her approaching, but they heard the door across the street swing open, and soon after a cry or wail that seemed to pierce through to the core of Clarke's thoughts, stirring the primal sense of fear that had helped man survive the dark wilderness of his ancient past. Clarke saw the others shudder as well, and an uneasy look passed between them all. Galliez crossed himself, lips moving briefly in prayer, and then he reached to take the lantern from Clarke.

He pushed open the door to their hiding place, and all were grateful that it swung silently on its flimsy hinges. Lantern in one hand, cane in the other, he stepped out into the alley. The inertia of fear broken, Clarke followed with Miss Dormion. She gripped the silver knife more tightly, and he wished that he possessed some protection for himself, having no silver nor flame, nor any other item considered pure or holy for his own protection. Superstition, he told himself again, was merely untested or unproven science. 

The doorway across the alley was dark, but not quiet. They could hear a woman's voice speaking quietly. As Galliez approached with the lamp the shadows were thrown back towards the woman revealed in the light. She was beautiful, even half in shadow, kneeling on the floor with Dormion's corpse cradled tenderly in her lap. Feral anger flashed in her eyes as she snapped her gaze upwards, and she made to stand. In the half light, her hands seemed to lengthen, sharpen, and the fabric of her dress was tight against her frame. The shadows pooled around her so that the angles of her body shifted and she became nothing but a dark formless thing in the distance. Clarke's blood turned to ice, but he was transfixed by the sight.

Galliez cursed, and hurled the lantern at her hard enough that he staggered back, off balance. It shattered, and the oil spattering her dress, the floor, the walls, ignited. She gave a keening wail, and advanced. Miss Dormion, inspired or desperate, likewise hurled her weapon. She seemed to have a knack with knives – it flew true, and Diane screeched again. Smoke billowed out of the door, carrying the scent of burning hair and other noxious fumes as the crumbling plasters and the dry-rotted wood beneath caught fire. 

Miss Dormion grasped Clarke's arm as she stepped back further into the alley, drawing him with her. He couldn't quite look away, though the growing flames made it even more difficult to know what was happening inside. The fire must have spread rapidly to the other room, or perhaps it was her brother who caused the scent of roasting meat that was carried on the poisoned air. He felt sick, and Miss Dormion looked green, though she forced herself back with a grimace to the doorway. Galliez had collapsed against the threshold, overcome perhaps by the smoke, or horror, or even relief. She could not move him, though, and called out to Clarke. "Help me!" 

It took a moment for Clarke to stir himself, to pull his gaze from the dancing flames. When he reached Galliez, the Frenchman was cold to the touch despite the blazing heat and, as they dragged him back, dark tendrils, of smoke or some other effervescence, seemed to withdraw from his form and coil back into the burning tenement. They dragged him out into the alley, but Clarke knew he was dead, that Diane had somehow claimed more than the flesh of her final victim. If there was a god Clarke hoped he looked after the spirits of his own.

There was little time to reflect, however – they were still not safe. Miss Dormion seemed determined not to abandon Galliez, and Clarke helped her move him further back, keeping as much attention as he could focused on the fire. It could spread or, worse, Diane could still emerge. 

Suddenly there was a series of loud popping sounds, and the fire for an instant flashed a brilliant green. At the same time, there came a low inhuman howl that crescendoed in rage and volume until it was cut off, just as suddenly, with a sort of hiss and a sound like shattering glass. It wasn't glass, but it was as piercing, and the alley was suddenly cold, suddenly enveloped in the heavy scent of flowers underlying the acrid smoke, and the shadows were pulled into the flames, and he saw them, saw beyond them, saw what they became...

* * *

Clarke awoke with a start, his heart still racing, his clothes – night clothes – soaked through with sweat. His mind fought to shut out his nightmares, but they lingered at the edges of his memory, slipping into more lucid forms – being stalked by a great black wolf, being lost in a dark forest, the sound of unknown flutes, the shadows thrown by an ancient standing stone under the full moon. He wasn't certain where he was – the room was sparsely decorated, the bed comfortable enough, but unfamiliar. 

He lay back down to try and calm himself before investigating further when he heard a key turning in the lock of the door. 

The door opened, and Miss Dormion appeared. She did not close it behind her, and he could hear other passing voices in the hallway beyond. In fact his hearing was very acute – he was certain he could have picked out words were he so inclined. 

"How are you now, Monsieur Clarke?" She smiled tiredly as him, and he thought she looked as worn and exhausted as he felt.

"I am afraid I do not feel quite myself." His heart was still pounding, and everything seemed very sharp to his senses – he could almost smell her nervousness. "What happened? I remember..." He remembered pulling Galliez back, he remembered the green fire, the howling, and here his mind balked.

Her face fell. "Please Monsieur, do not try. It is not good for your nerves. But you still don't know where you are?" 

Clarke tried to push away thoughts of the alley and reach for shallower remembrances. All that filled his mind were image-echoes of his dream, and he felt even now as though he was being stalked. There was something in the room, pressing in against the world, lurking just beyond his sight, in another spectrum... He shivered, and the growing tightness in his chest made it difficult to breathe. "It doesn't matter where I am."

He realized this must be a hospital or even an asylum. But he wasn't ill or mad, though it would surely do him little good to protest.

"Perhaps not, Monsieur Clarke. But Monsieur Villiers is here, as well, and he is making the final arrangements to take you someplace where you should have better care. He is hopeful that they can help you at least with your dreams. I am not so certain."

He nodded slowly. "How long has it been?"

"Four days." Miss Dormion sighed, shaking her head. "I had hoped you might recover. The doctors say that your body cannot maintain this anxious state. Your nerves are fragile, and you become too easily overwhelmed, and lose consciousness, and forget all over again."

"Not anxiety, my dear." He smiled thinly, piecing together more. Villiers' voice came floating down the hall, speaking with an unfamiliar man about York, and some retreat there. "Panic."

"Just so, Monsieur." She nodded gravely, and he wondered if they had spoken of this before. Perhaps his condition was psychiatric, but he doubted there was a treatment. There was no shock they could administer greater than that which he had experienced already. Could they perhaps excise the part of his mind that continued to wrestle with experience beyond the capacity of knowledge? Or exorcise it? Could they close up what should never have been opened with enough sedatives? Or would all this leave him even more poorly equipped to protect himself? It was best, he suspected, to dwell on it as little as possible.

"What became of Galliez?" He asked instead.

"I leave today to return his body to France. He did not believe he would survive this trip, but he wished to be certain..." She hesitated, giving him a searching look. "That he would be given proper rites."

Clarke nodded, though he doubted any rites could help the man, no matter how arcane. "And you?"

"I do not think it matters where I am, either. Only that I cannot return home – there is too much wildness there."

"Wildness is never so far as we would like it to be – much like Galliez said. We are all werewolves. We are all prey. The veil is thin."

Miss Dormion nodded, glancing around nervously. When she spoke, her voice was hushed, as if she feared to be overheard. Perhaps she worried they would keep her as well. "That may be true, and truer still for you and I. But you know, I think, that there are some regions more strongly marked – places where civilization cannot reach. It would be worse there. I will find somewhere else, somewhere where the roots of civilization are stronger set."

There was nowhere strong enough. If Helen, if Diane, could penetrate into the society of London, then there was nowhere safe. Clarke's thoughts raced, thinking of the violence and chaos of the world, continuously tearing itself apart. Miss Dormion's brother had been right – the world was consuming itself, always. He could feel the illusion thinning, the tightness in his chest increasing as the forces of the world beyond the veil pressed in against him. "No you won't," he whispered, curling uselessly in on himself as his panic swelled. "No you won't, you won't, no..."


End file.
